


say hello, melancholia

by kimaracretak



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Force Bond (Star Wars), Memory Loss, Mentor/Protégé, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: There is a ghost, pieced together from Kreia's stories, from the sense-memories of Nar Shadda, of the gunner's seat.Of the wound, somewhere, that's been bleeding behind your eyes since you had decided to leave for Onderon.
Relationships: Female Jedi Exile/Kreia
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	say hello, melancholia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tuesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/gifts).



> You know you are me  
> And I know I am you  
> And I promised you someday our pain would-  
> Pull us through  
> — 'Born in Flames', In This Moment

The fever is rattling behind your eyes like a physical thing, lightsaber-hot and digging into your skull as insistently as Kreia is gripping your hand.

"You're unfocused," she says, and the disappointment in her tone is almost worse than the physical pain. "I have watched you in so many battles, and this is not the woman I used to know."

"Then perhaps it is a good thing that I do not know her anymore." There is a ghost, pieced together from Kreia's stories, from the sense-memories of Nar Shadda, of the gunner's seat.

Of the wound, somewhere, that's been bleeding behind your eyes since you had decided to leave for Onderon.

There is nothing else. You would mourn her, you think, if you had known her better. There is something to be said for life as you have it now, so very aware of every living thing that it sometimes seems impossible to breathe with it.

"That's a hasty judgement to make." Kreia's face is shadowed in the dim lights of the cargo bay, even with her hood down, and you're sure even so that she is making her own judgments of you, shifting word by word and yet never quite shading into disapproval. So far. "The work we are doing together is difficult to build upon a foundation of absence."

Your left hand is throbbing in an echo of the Ebon Hawk's engines under your feet, and you know the space where Kreia's own hand used to be must be in pain as well. It's a reminder in its own way - that what you are now owes more to Kreia than to your past life. It has served you well, since you woke, and all you can do is hope that it continues to.

You have given up on hoping for answers, but you ask the question anyway: "Then why will you not tell me more of her?"

Kreia blinks up at you, and the fever in your skull rolls with every movement of her eyes. "Because," she says, "The only absence is the spaces where you do not let me in. You are more than your memories, Exile. You always have been, and always will be."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." The smile tugging at the corner of your mouth is almost involuntary - it pulls at your old scar like an unspoken desire, and you watch Kreia's lips purse to mirror your own.

This, too, is your comfort: that Kreia has known you before and still accepts you now, leans into your bond and tells you to keep on.

"It can be," Kreia says. Her fingertips are soft on your wrist, her eyes fixed somewhere on the stars behind you and simultaneously raking over your heart. She pulls you closer, presses her lips to you: your forehead, each of your cheeks, your own lips. She kisses you like she wants something, like you're a better answer than anything she has ever given you, and you open to her instinctively.

You could never do anything else.

When Kreia pulls back, her eyes are brighter than you've ever seen them. "But perhaps it will not be. I've chosen you for a reason, Exile, because I believe you are the only one who will know for certain."

You want to fear her. But at her words, the fever begins to subside.


End file.
